Why you may have to pay for having a mobile or landline number

You could soon have to pay a fee for your mobile number or your landline number as per a proposal by telecom regulator Trai which said that since phone number “represent an exceedingly valuable public resource which is not infinite”, charges can be imposed on mobile operators. Telecom regulator Trai said that since phone number “represent an exceedingly valuable public resource which is not infinite”, charges can be imposed on mobile operators. The proposal read as per a report in the Times of India, "Simply adhering to strict criteria for assigning numbering resources might not ensure judicious and efficient use of freely allotted numbering resources by service providers. The fee could be put in place either by imposing a one-time charge per number or through an annual recurring charge for each numbering resource allocated to the service provider, Trai said.